Dedicated to ……….
To the remembrance of the COVID-19 affected and the Oppressed,
&
To the inspirational leaders;
Mr Hallak, the Principal of Al Taqwa College, who always encourages me to write.
Dr Rashid Ashkari, my Uni Professor, Vice - Chancellor of IUB, who still inspires me from far away.
AL AMIN
Chapter 1
Far ……… against the eastern horizon, where the pale blue cloudless sky uncovered the duvet of the earth and was whispering to it, there emerged an orange glow of the morning sun with zero disruption of air pollution to enlighten another frozen day of the lockdown pandemic world; the world which had been fighting helplessly and hopelessly against COVID-19 coronavirus since December 2019. Flocks of flying birds without vehicles were chirping and honking while heading towards trafficless buildings, markets, offices, and schools as if they had undertaken human responsibilities in turns. Meanwhile, the toddler sun almost turned into the teen to pin our innocent eyes with its hazardous sunshine through the level four hospital windows, where my dad and I, the grieving survivors of the super corona world, had been honourably locked since May 23, 2020. We had been living here not as coronavirus patients but as souls for the whole humanity by sacrificing our super corona cells to produce perfect vaccines against COVID-19.
As soon as our breakfast was over, world famous journalists and media personals agglomerated in our tiny hospital abode and almost stumbled on us to uproot the truth behind that pandemic relief. They did not maintain the social distance because they knew that the effective vaccine had already been made by then. Too many multi-coloured microphones covered with diverse types of masks, which were held in front of us, certainly erased our appetite lines for the day. Among their oceans of questions, we could not but sink down under silence within a few minutes. We proposed to select one of their representatives who could regularly come at the given time to record our insights and stories behind the success and publish them for the whole humanity; whom we had never met and will not ever meet either in the future.
So did they send a writer from among them from June 19 onwards. He used to come and listen to both of us by turns and recorded everything we uttered.
Chapter 2
We love to remain nameless as we are going to share with you our past; the past in which our freedom of will, hopes and inspirations, and possibilities to survive were chained and highly affected by super corona. You don’t need a super powerful microscope to diagnose our virus. Any honest, kind, reliable, sensible, humble, and caring heart can feel our pangs and sufferings; sufferings which had been hovering over our existence since our birth and tormenting us simultaneously towards a doomed disabled painful future.
We were born in a lovely country as yours. However, due to our extreme trauma of bitter life experiences and the emergence of the United Nations, World Health Organisation, and Human Rights Watch like generous and cautious international organisations, we virtually have become an international citizen with imprinted passports in our souls.
Apparently we seem to be selfish for ourselves, but we do feel that we are the bodies of the whole humanity. Though we had been suffering from the super corona for decades, by the grace of God we were not dead yet; still surviving to engulf unexpected and inhumane gifts every moment and every second from any corner of the world.
Chapter 3
The sky was full of dark, brown, and broken clouds. Birds were returning to their nests. Suburbans started sinking down in the darkness. Thunderstorms were about to start. Dad got some raw foods to cook for his beloved family. Hunger made us solidly tired and exhausted. It was so immense that our dry eyes could not even think of taking rest and cry. Mum was very sick due to the seasonal cold and flu. My younger sister, about to be seven, looked back at me with a dry smile hoping to consume something at least at the eleventh hour of the day.
Dad started cooking, and with his happy face he tried to make us calm and understand his hardship. Several times I bowed down my face towards the ground to swallow the physical, mental, and economic crisis he had been going through.
It was almost ready. I was thinking about mum; when she would have the dinner and have the medicine to be cured. We had been missing her companion, affection, and hugs for last two weeks.
Suddenly, a speedy broken cracked sound captured our dinner environment. We got horrified! Three men with black masks and clear eyes, who were fully armed and handcuffs, approached my dad. Mum asked the reasons behind his arrest. Deaf and angry they were. They stabbed her head hard with rifle bayonets. Our screaming and heartfelt emotional cry did neither penetrate their hearts nor reach to the outer world. Dad could say something important, but his face was tightly covered including his eyes; eyes which allured us just minutes ago for our survival from the hunger.
I fainted all of a sudden.
Gusty wind leaked through the poor window and woke me up scared. Horrified I was, seeing the dead bodies of my mum and my younger sister. Tears remained inside the heart solemn-silent. No sooner had I cried for them, than some cops entered inside again. They held two of my arms very tightly, flew me out of the house, and pushed me to sit down inside their mini jail as if a terror eagle snatched an innocent floating fish and threw it from the sky to kill it. My eyes were shut as well as the mouth.
Chapter 4
Oh God, why am I here; a little tiny dark room with a stingy smell and horrific look? Snaky chains captured my feet, arms, and the neck. Tortures on the way, hunger from the previous day, and tremendous tiredness beyond to say were forcing all of my limbs to fall apart; apart from my desire to survive. Within my inner and outer existence, I felt subconscious sufferings. It was as if a huge innocent tree was uprooted by the tough terrific tornadoes, flown it over the dark misty clouds, and thrown it dead to the hard barren island. Just before I went consciously disconnected from my gloomy environment. I laughed about my power and said, “How powerful am I against my native, patriotic, and powerful god?"
Thanks, God. My wife has got cured. She looked for a job knocking shops to shops over the weeks. Kindness came out of someone’s heart, and thus she got one; sweeping the front of the shop twice a day, cleaning the racks, and stocking goods on the empty shelves. Few days later she got a similar job the next door. She could run the family to survive with basic needs. She also had been saving some money to set me free from the prison.
Six months later, when she had an honourable savings to go to the city lawyer, she planned to leave clearly along with the children.
Six o'clock in the morning. The whole world was about to wake up. The sun did not even clearly rise up. Horizon was still in dilemma of snowish darkness and the mingle of bleak-golden-dull-brassy-promising sun of the day. Journey of a new day was about to start to accelerate a forlorn hope to get their home-sun back.
As they packed up the required things the night before, they just woke up and set off for the city. She did not have enough money to spend on transportation. Finding no other alternatives, they started a straight journey across the hilly-bushy-thorny mountain footpaths. Sometimes, they had to create their own ways while moving forward. Nature was flooded with bluish, greenish, and reddish plum blossoms, eryngium giganteum, opuntia, diverse types of cactus, thorn apples, tribulus terrestris, wingthorn rose, mysore thorns, and crown of thorns. They were very soothing to eyes, but for them it was a daunting doable task to go across. As they marched on, wild thorny flowers and plants started challenging and snagging them with their rough prickles, spines, and thorns to send them back home. Toxic alkaloid spines and thorns had already poked them and injected poisons into their skins before they reached even half way through. However, they were extremely benign and caring to them.
My little daughter could not walk through those lovely thorny ways. She did not realise the importance of that heart-breaking